Be were back in Ireland last week for a wedding. My brother-in-law Darragh married his girlfriend Emilie in a beautiful ceremony in Dublin, which meant we had to arrange a babysitter for our children as every single family member within a 100 mile radius was coming with us to said wedding.
Miraculously, our friend Mary was up to the task and offered to take the two children to her mother’s house in Wicklow, keep them occupied with her own children for the day and lead the slumber party afterwards. She offered 24 hours of free childcare out of the goodness of her heart and to say we were grateful would be an understatement.
I would even go so far as to say that I love my children, but I have no illusions about how difficult it is to keep them occupied 24 hours a day. The difficulty lies especially with our daughter, a bright little ray of sunshine of two who makes us smile a thousand times a day, but is also so affectionate that even a moderate amount of time away from us leaves her glowing with fear and anger.
She never slept through the night for the first 22 months of her life, and still considers that an unnecessary luxury. We kept a close eye on her for the week leading up to the day, cringing in mounting horror as she steadfastly refused to sleep. Family meetings were called, at which it was decided that if she did not improve in the next two nights, we could not in good conscience hand her over to our friend and would take turns caring for her throughout the wedding – a prospect that neither of us relishes.
Fortunately, she slept well the next two nights and we were able to put the plan into action, warning Mary that there was a significant chance that this task would destroy both her life and our friendship.
We ended up spending the wedding getting photographic evidence of our daughter, who was in her best mood, playing happily all day, and falling asleep a whopping 30 minutes earlier than she ever does with us. She slept through the night without incident, forgetting our existence with a quickness that was almost insulting.
When she returned a whole day later, she barely noticed us, snuggled up in her new family, greeting us like co-workers from some vaguely remembered summer job. Suddenly the trepidation we felt as parents of a difficult child was replaced by the fear that we were the problem; a pair of irresponsible, indifferent parents, as Roald Dahl had described them, whose radiant Matilda could only spread her wings in another, more loving family.
I tried to explain this to Mary, but she frowned slightly and tilted her head, suggesting that she might have glossed over our daughter’s perfect behavior. “Eh, she was great,” she said, no doubt afraid we would ask her to do the favor again, “but we shouldn’t exaggerate.”
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